Texas (musical)

Texas is a stage musical produced annually by the Texas Panhandle Heritage Foundation at the outdoor Pioneer Amphitheater in Palo Duro Canyon outside of Canyon, Texas. The show is performed every Tuesday through Sunday from June through August. It was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Green.

This family-friendly show is set against an authentic tapestry of history and the show's fictional characters bring to life the stories, struggles, and triumphs of the settlers of the Texas Panhandle in the 1800s. Some of the show's highlights include special fire and water effects. ("For many years," one journalist has noted, "the first act has ended with an explosion of lightning and thunder, a special effect created with a 450-foot length of military-grade detonating cord that stretches from a tree behind the stage partway up the canyon wall.") Also available as part of the visitor experience are backstage tours and catered chuck-wagon barbecue dinners.

Overture
The Watering Hole
Calvin's Farm and Dugout
Girl's Dressing Room
Cowboy's Bunk House
Colonel Henry's Ranch
Palo Duro Canyon

Colonel Henry's Ranch
A Gulch on Calvin's Farm
Colonel Henry's Porch
Dream
Kate's Wash Tub
Calvin's Dugout
Parlor of Colonel Henry's Ranch
Elsie's Boarding House in St. Louis
The Town of Henrianna
Grand Finale

The musical drama deals fictionally with events from Texas history. The story's protagonist is Calvin Armstrong, a young homesteader from the East who seeks to make a living as a farmer in the Texas Panhandle. "Uncle" Henry, a wealthy rancher, is buying land and fencing it off for his cattle. Elsie McClain, Uncle Henry's niece, is Calvin's love interest. Tucker Yelldale, a gold prospector, serves as the play's comic relief.

The story begins with "the rider on the rim" — a cowboy brandishing the Lone Star Flag while riding his horse at full speed only a few feet from the edge of the 800-foot cliff side. The show then kicks off with an overture, featuring dancing and the singing of old Texas favorites. Uncle Henry introduces the characters and provides a brief historical backdrop to the story.

Texas was born in 1960 when Margaret Harper read an article in Reader's Digest about playwright and author Paul Eliot Green. Green had recreated the histories of several regions of America in what he called "symphonic dramas", featuring pageantry and music. Mrs. Harper began corresponding with Green about the land, people, and beauty of Palo Duro Canyon. As Harper reached out to friends and colleagues in Canyon, interest in the prospect of an outdoor theater began to grow, and soon a small group of Canyon families funded the first trip for Green to come from his North Carolina home to the Panhandle later that year. According to those in attendance that first meeting, Green immediately dedicated himself to the project of bringing the history of the High Plains to the stage.

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